Cacoethes, Persephone
by the freelance dreamer
Summary: Persephone has always yearned to be part of The Hunt. No one takes a goddess of springtime very seriously though. However, when Persephone finds herself caught up in a power play of the gods, there is only one she can turn to for aid. In the end, there was never any other choice. "Cacoethes," from the Greek meaning "an irresistible desire to do something inadvisable."
1. Chapter 1: Pandora

A/N: The gods of Greek mythology are a capricious lot. Barring that, they always seemed so... human, to me. Mortal wants, mortal desires. And if Persephone wasn't the foolish nature goddess we have always made her out to be - i do not think she would have been content to watch the grass grow. I think she would have yearned for adventure - yearned for a life beyond what she had. And in that insatiable quest for adventure ... i think she would have pushed too far.

Persephone's POV:

* * *

_A wise man once told me that our life is the sum of the choices we've made, both consciously… and unconsciously. That if you can control the process of choosing, you can control all aspects of your life._

_The concept would have been a bit more beguiling if the man hadn't already gone off the deep end some years ago - as it was, these days he was so perpetually intoxicated by the libations to the gods (not to mention the toll that the deadly volcanic fumes which had permeated his lungs for decades might have already taken on his mind) that he could barely stand on his own two feet, much less say something wise. Yet hypothetically speaking, the cogidy old soothsayer had a point. Our life is made up of choices, but our own impulsivity and curiosity tends to get in the way and screw us over in the end. Mortals, half- mortals – even the immortal – not one of us is ever truly guileless with choice. Otherwise, would not the gods and mortals alike be masters of their own destiny? Yet we're all so apt to make decisions without real regard of the consequences. So quick to lose control. Just look at Aphrodite and Ares – or rather, don't._

_So if you flip the old man's words inside out, what you really end up with is this: that sometimes, everything you are - everything you have worked so hard to achieve – can be unraveled with a single choice. _

_A single question -_

_A lie._

* * *

A sudden raucous cry of birds taking flight jarred me from my reverie. The sound also startled my unsuspecting prey, but before I could hastily loose an arrow into its side, the proud beast shook its antlered crown and bounded off into the thickset forest. The shaft buried itself viciously into the loam. Silently I cursed my luck and a few of the minor gods as well. My mother would faint dead away if she could hear half of what went on inside of my head, but my thoughts were the one thing I didn't have to censor around here, for her or really anyone else. Not that it really mattered… I was half Zeus's kin after all - I could afford to make a few enemies.

With a sigh, I carefully disentangled myself from the tree branch I had wedged myself into in an attempt to get a better angle on my prey. I wasn't any huntress of Artemis, but considering most of my ventures had to be done in secret anyway, I wasn't doing too badly for myself, either.

Before I could slide gratefully from my clandestine perch among the treetops, however, another figure came crashing into the clearing. I blinked in surprise. It was one of Artemis' huntresses, a demi-mortal no less.

The woman collapsed onto her side, gripping her ankle and grimacing, glaring at the offending part as if it meant to slow her down. There was a lone falcon cry and almost as if on cue the hunter whipped around and began firing shaft after shaft into the darkened wood she had left. What came next was almost too quick for even immortal eyes to see. A flash of silver streaked across the corner of my vision and buried itself in the hunter's shoulder, causing her to gasp and drop her weapon in shock and pain. The woman wrenched the knife from her shoulder with a gasp and attempted to raise it in defense, only to let out a strangled cry as a second one found her throat. A throaty chuckle emanated from the woods. "You==" she gasped, choking. A figured dressed in violet hues and a single unadorned band stepped casually up to the huntress' dying figure. "My dear, dear, Arethusa. I gave you a choice. One cannot serve two masters. But don't worry – Death takes great joy in the stewardship of your company. "

The hunter stared up at him with wild eyes, spluttering for air. I wasn't doing much better.

The man sighed, pacing around the side of her prone figure. "Perhaps I ought to cut out your eager tongue to keep it from swaying around to your mistress too much from the Underworld? Then again, I find it personally quite difficult myself to speak to others when my throat has been slit." The last word was steeped in hatred, but after a moment, the figure seemed to compose himself again, even going so far as to smile indulgently down at the dying girl. He traced the knife at her neck with his leather-clad boot almost absentmindedly, as if considering the threads of possibilities before him. Then, without warning, his boot connected with her neck, suddenly driving the blade deeper into her throat. The huntress jerked grotesquely and lay still.

With a languished sigh, the figure straightened and peered lazily around him. He paused for a moment, cocking his head as if something interesting had caught his eye. My heart caught in my throat. Out of the corner of my eye, filtered light glinted traitorously off the glimmering shaft of a single, half-buried golden arrow. The thought sent a sickening thrill down my spine. Not daring to draw breath, I watched from the trees as he cast one last look at the body behind him before casually made his way toward the edge of the clearing. As he turned to leave, he cast a single, knowing, glance into the treetops before melting back into the shadows.

For a moment I lay still, so still; even a dryad would be hard pressed to find me among the trees. Eventually though, I slipped down from my hiding place, tore aside the underbrush and crept surreptitiously out into the glade. Almost as if I had been possessed by some otherworldly force, I knelt cautiously beside the prone figure of the huntress, running my hands gently over the soft greaves at the girl's wrist and smoothing back her dark hair. The girl's eyes regarded me glassily as I bent to study her further, yet a flash of pitched black color in her hand quickly drew my eye. Slowly, carefully, I tried to gently pry the knife out the girl's cold fist.

There, among the wash of red and silver, was a stark black emblem of an eye flanked by three sharp, downward strokes.

My heart stopped.

I knew that symbol.

It was a seal, one of the marks specific to The Twelve.

The symbol of the Underworld.

* * *

A/N: Hello! As I'm sure many of you noticed, this is not your usual, run-of-the-mill Persephone-Hades story. We often make so many parallels to our concept of Hell and the Greek's concept of the Underworld, but we tend to overlook the parallels between mythology and Celtic folklore that seem to be staring us in the face.

Who is this villain? Is it Hades? Or someone _else? _(shout out in the next few chapters to the one who guesses correctly~)

Chapter 2 is on its way. In the mean time, please review! Feedback always makes my day a little brighter (and will encourage me to update quicker!)


	2. Chapter 2: Flight

There was a sharp crack behind me.

Wild-eyed, I whipped around, my bow notched and loaded before I had even rolled to my feet.

Before me stood a young girl – an Artemisian Hunter – one whose spirit seemed to have been claimed by the wild huntress long before she had even yet reached a marrying age. The glint of the silver crescent insignia on the cross strap of her quiver seemed to confirm my suspicions. Yet I could not relax my bow, for even as I took in this young mortal-but-not's features, her eyes remained as round an alert as ever, as if transfixed by some horror.

Perhaps it's the idea of the innocent Goddess of Springtime with a hunting bow, though somehow I had a feeling that my hands still bearing the blood another goddess's handmaiden probably garnered a bit more attention.

_Well isn't that just my luck._

"Arathusa," the girl whispered. Her eyes hardened. Her bow curled listlessly in one hand as the other dropped to the ram's horn bugle by her side, wresting it from its straps and slowly placed it to her lips.

Time seemed to stretch and slow in that moment. I couldn't afford to stop and explain my predicament, and although this girl was hardly immortal, she was one of Artemis' handmaidens, which meant she was barely mortal too. Artemis had made her deadly, but I needed to stall for time; catch her off guard without actually getting either one of us getting maimed in the process. So I did the last thing any sane archer would expect a fellow bowman to do – I launched myself directly at her.

The girl squeaked in surprised, but by then I had already shoved her to the ground and bounded past her before she had a chance to recover.

Crashing through the thickets, I hedged around the outside of the clearing and back the opposite direction of her approach. Surely, there would be more with her. Overhead, I could hear the hunting horn, long and mournful, dissipating into the mists above. After a pause, another responded to its lament, this one echoing all around me as more and more answered its call.

For me, the woods held a special kind of horror. Visions of deadly silver danced in my mind's eye as I imagined them streaking through the trees and burying themselves in my back and neck, heralding the reappearance of the demonic entity from the clearing before. Even now, it was as if the shadows and the trees were conspiring against me, each taking turns twisting at my feet and tearing at my tunic. Behind me, a telltale zing of a bowstring caused me to stumble to my feet, just missing the fickle silvery shaft which just only moments ago had planned to bury itself in my skin. I grit my teeth and kept running. It was my own surreptitious horror turned waking nightmare.

As I passed under another open patch of sky, I could see the silver moonlight slipping through the trees, signaling the approaching night. Once the last of the light of dusk had shaded in and out of twilight, the Huntress Goddess herself would surely come for me, at which point my immortality could go happily to hell in a hand basket for all the good it was going to do then.

I burst out of the forest, thinking that I was to find myself in another clearing, but the forest had suddenly just, well, stopped. Collapsing onto a large, grayed rock, I surveyed my surroundings. Before me, the trees thinned away significantly, giving way to a rolling sea of colorless wheat before my eyes. Beyond that? Nothing. It was as if here the God Pan had suddenly given up, surrendering treasured soil to the whims of chance. I didn't like it. It felt… unnatural, otherworldly.

"Why have you come here?"

A voice swathed in velvet and silver broke me from my uneasy reverie. I rolled clumsily off the rock into a defensive stance. Before me, a silver-haired apparition dressed in pitch black armor held my gaze. "I could ask you the same," I replied evenly, though I was desperately trying to keep my bow arm from quivering.

"What's this? The little Goddess of Springtime trains an arrow at my heart? Oh, the Fates have a sense of humor indeed!" the figure responded, his laugh low and rumbling. It was a curious sound, one that made me yearn to hear another strand of its melody. Almost. Goddess of Springtime or no, this goddess does not like being laughed at.

"And what's so amusing about that? An arrow is still an arrow, is it not? And it is a weapon that may surely draw its victims' mortal blood, regardless of whose hand stays its company," I replied haughtily. To my frustration, this only made him laugh all the harder. I couldn't take it any longer. Springtime wasn't renowned for its patient temperament.

"What the Hell is the matter with you?!"

Instead of answering in anger, he stopped. "What in Hell, indeed," he murmured enigmatically; with such sincerity that it was all I could do to keep my mouth from popping open. Then, just as fleetingly as it had gone, he was back. He fixed me with a wolfish smile.

"Well, well, my dear Persephone, It appears you have reached an impasse. "

"Wherefore say you this?" I replied, keeping my speech formal; I did not like the idea that my options were now limited just because some overly-pompous - albeit extremely dangerous - stranger said it was to be so.

He gestured grandly about the area. "Surely you hear the hunting horns getting closer? By the nightfall, even Artemis herself shall pursue you through these woods. To your back, approach the hunters. Before you, you will not be able to make it one league before the Goddess herself pierces you with her vengeful arrow and brings you forth for judgment before the Council of the Gods. Demeter holds no power in their court; she is little more than a symbol there. Your Father –"

"My _father_ is **Zeus**, you miscreant." So much for formalities.

"Your Father—" he continued silkily, "—will not dare to raise his voice against the Divine Huntress should his _queen_, Hera, take her side. Do not forget that your mother is not his queen, my dear."

I felt myself flush; whether from anger or shame, though, I know not which won out as the stronger of the two.

"Now, there is, of course, a third option." My eyes whipped toward him in surprise, watching the curious stranger before me for any signs of untruth. Spying ill-masked suspicion upon my expression, he smirked cajolingly at me.

Yet his next words, serpent soft, did not seem to match his previously candid expression.

"Trust me."

Two words: It was both a petition and a plea, a demon's enticement and a Hail-Mary wrapped into one, irresistible compilation. An ultimatum. Trust him.

He held out a single iron and leather clad palm beseechingly, his red eyes burning feverishly with that wolfish confidence of his and something else – concern? Fear? Of what? That I might say no? I had no options left.

Besides, I was already powerless to resist.

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2 down, more to come! R&R - please and thank you!


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